A way out for Venezuela: current conditions

The OAS resolution of yesterday is important on one point: the Venezuelan dictatorship of Maduro is finally named by its name. Only three countries out of 3 out 35 think that Venezuela is still a presentable regime.  Thus it is time to act. But how?


The rush

Venezuela is fast becoming a "legal" narco dictatorship. As such it will become a haven for all sort of traffickers, and drugs will not be the only one. Can the Americas allow a country as big as Venezuela to become the official platform for prostitution, drugs, gambling and what not?

The Venezuelan crisis will be sending increasing numbers of refugees, already affecting to the breaking point Colombia and to significant degree Ecuador, Peru and Chile since they are the only land line out for poorer Venezuelans.

The blocks

With the OAS resolution we must focus on what is it that is blocking an exit inside Venezuela.

The obvious stumbling block is that the regime higher ups (already 11 named for the Hague international court for investigation) know what is in store for them were they to lose power.  It is not even a matter of whether Cuba affects the outcome, it is that dozens of chavista apparatchiks cannot surrender power anymore through a "peaceful" process. They just can't.

The opposition has blocks of its own. It divided en three groups and they do not want to measure against each other.  Falcon wants us to believe that the 1.8 million that allegedly voted for him are his. The abstention is claimed by the Machado/Ledezma side against the MUD side. Forgetting both of them that there is a significant percentage of voters that ALWAYS abstain.  The problem here is that each group has thus different strategies to counter the regime and that at the end of the day each strategy is annulled by the other two, no matter how good that one may be. In fact that there are three groups almost ensures that the three will survive for a while whereas it is my belief that if we had only two groups people would decant much faster towards one of them.

The reality

It is the crisis and it cannot wait any longer. Everyday we get more and more tales of decay and ruion. The sanctions are not affecting the people directly but what is going to play havoc are the litigations that the regime is losing.

These losses are contributing to further limitations on oil export least those oil tankers are judicially seized for compensation.  What worries more is that the stubborn regime, having lost its first major battle against Conoco remains self righteous and prefers to hide our oil rather than reach some deal. Thus the recent oil price increase is not benefiting us as it should be.  And of course the resistance of the regime will force new sanctions that eventually will make our situation worse. But that I can deal with it, these sanctions are just speeding up our way to the deep hole that we will reach sanctions or not as long as Maduro is misruling.

Next entries, possible outcomes